EV Express

( Note per 15 may 2019: In the latest build of Blender, lights settings have been unified more between Cycles and Eevee. Therefore EV Express had an update to adapt to these changes. ).

EV Express is an add-on that speeds up tremendously the workflow setting up a scene in EEVEE to showcase your model. No more hassle adjust all the render settings, shadows, contact shadows, probes, etc. Per april 15 you can use the EV Express add-on also for Cycles, see FAQ.

You ever were in the situation that you quickly wanted to setup a scene but at the end it took a bit longer because you were looking for settings somewhere hidden? Not with EV Express. Now you can be really productive in case you need a scene to showcase your model.

Features:

Add two light rigs with best settings known so far for shadow, contact shadow, etc.

Colour presets for lights inspired by HDRI's from Greg Zaal. Of course it's not possible to simulate HDRI's with lights in EEVEE but it is pretty handy to have some presets that are recognizable.

Add backdrops to the scene. For now, there are four kinds of backdrops.

Add volumetrics. Ready to render, so no hassle to set up material (or find the material) but just press two buttons. Adjust color of volume.

Add keyingset for all the settings for one of the light-rigs. This means that you can keyframe the rig and with that, you keyframe it's colors, position, scale, and focus. Normally you have to keyframe each color for each light for example. now you can do it with one click.

Settings related to camera which are normally spread out across several places like Lock to View, DOF, Focal Length, and with one button you place an empty for the Depth of Field. The depth of field with be automagically enbabled. How convenient! I love it.

The global shader is now included (per 12 april update). This was a seperate addon but I merged it in the EV Express addon. See the global shader as a shader for the whole scene but has a colour scheme. With one button-click you can change the colourscheme. I stole these colour combinations from movies.

Add nine useful Nodegroups in the compositor. There are common ones like vignette but also some unique nodegroups like Logo-overlay and Normal-FX.

Roadmap:

Per May 5, the EV EXpress addon will be out of pre-release. There will be price-increase. Before May 5, I hope to receive enough feedback and suggestions to improve the addon further.

More backdrops.

Templates for the Logo Overlay Nodegroups

Export Lightgroups (renders) so you can import the renders as layers in GIMP for example.

Update 05_04_2019:

Improved UI, starting with options to add items to the scene to ensure a better workflow.

Correct name of addon in the preferences and in the N-Panel's tab.

Fixed an issue that a backdrop showed up invisible.

The cube to bake indirect light is now hidden to it's eassier to control the rig with the empties.

Update 12_04_2019:

Quite a huge update this week:

Added common settings related to camera.

Merged the addon Global Shader into this addon EV Express. See documentation (and video later) what you can do with the Global Shader.

Divided the menu with collapsible panels. This to make it better readable and settings you don't need for the moment you can collapse.

The backdrops comes now with probes, and the probes are parented to it.

A selection button to select both parents of the rig. This is convenient manipulating the rig. Try R and R again.

Fix: Scaling and rotation of the two empties were not included in the keying set.

Update 18 April 2019:

Fixed issue with making the global shader active. (it was only selected, not active)Now you just have to click the button: Select GS. and then go to the customer properties in the properties panel (tab object) to adjust the material.

Made a dropdown menu for the presets of the global shader so it takes less space.

There is now a menu for colour combinations and a menu to choose shaders. So I added shader presets.

EV-Express goes TURBO. This is a blend-file where you just have to model and use the Global Shader. Set output file, render and see 100 variations. Pick the nice ones, and sent those to your client (for example).

There was a bug in Blender, and removed the text inside the principled volume to prevent the bug to happen. Smoke/Fog is working again. Meanwhile the bug in Blender is now solved as well.

Added more colour combinations, mainly based on Movies from Tim Burton and one colour combination from the movie Geisha.

Update April 26, 2019:

Added a 3 Point Light Rig

Added control for the smoke

Added settings for Color Management

Made menu's dynamic.

Added extensive documentation in-app. Meaning there is a button in the in the addon that opens documentation in the browser.

Update May 3, 2019

Added nodegroups for the compositor

Bug fix

Update May 15, 2019

In the latest build of Blender, lights settings have been unified more between Cycles and Eevee. Therefore EV Express had an update to adapt to these changes

Update May 17, 2019

After the update two days ago, I found the lights to harsh. Then I found out: the stronger the lights are, you tend to place them further away. This make the lights look harsh (search for fall of). So I reduced the strength of lights and also gave them a bit soft shadow. Overall the lights looks better and it improves user-experience.

Tip: For the 3point Control, use the colorpicker instead of the Energy property. This works much faster. In the colorpicker, to change the strength of light use the vertical slider on the right.

Update may 18, 2019

Due to changes in Blender's API on May 18, many functions broke related to:

Additional lights

Smoke

Render Settings

Camera Settings

These have been fixed. Also when using one of the Render Settings buttons, the AO-pass and the Normal-pass will be enabled. This is handy for when you add the nodegroups to the compositor. (The is the AO-mix node that uses the AO-pass and the Normal-FX nodes uses the Normal pass).

With every update I send out an e-mail. In case you didn't receive any e-mail let me know.